Variance Guild Wars 2 – Arenanet interview

Couple of weeks ago, our small blog gently enquired if it was possible to have a short interview with Arenanet devs about Guild Wars 2. The excellent folks at Arenanet not just proved, that they really care about fans and fansites (also about the small ones), but they also were kind enough to give us exclusive, never-seen-before answers to some of the questions. So here we go, below you can read questions collected by our superb community, answered by Eric Flannum (Lead Designer), John Corpening (Programmer), Egan Hirvela (Game Designer), Matt Witter (Game Designer). Special thanks to Regina Buenaobra, without her, we couldn’t make this interview!

Are you planning to have several WvW maps from day one, or will there beonly a single map at launch?

John Corpening:There will be four maps at launch. We will be pitting three different worlds together in WvW. Each world will have a home map that connects to a center map. Teams can invade their opponents’ home maps by first going through the center map. So we expect the center map to be a crossroads of combat as each team does battle for the glory of their world.

How are WvW maps going to be structured? Will it be a single map or severalsmaller maps?

Egan Hirvela: Players will start off in their own home maps. Here, they will be able to take control of vital locations and get a feel for how our capture system works. Once they travel to the center map, each team begins at their own portal keep. From here they can move out and fight for control of various landmarks while battling players from other teams. We anticipate the battles to cross back and forth between the center map and the outlying home maps as teams gain and lose footholds.What kind of strategically important landmarks/locations will reside on aWvW map and what impact will those have on a battle?Matt Witter: Each type of World vs World objective has strategic value. While I can’t delve too deeply into the specifics of how each objective type works. I can say that there is no wrong way to take part in WvW. If you are a solo player, small group player or large group player there is always something for you to accomplish. If the enemy is held up in a fully upgraded fortress and you are not the type of player that enjoys large scale combat, you can simply cut off their supply routes, and deprive the defenders of resources they need in order to maintain their defense. If you are planning on just working together as a small guild, you can easily take towers that cut reinforcements, and supplies off.

Will role-playing servers be introduced, where role-playing-oriented players can enjoy greater immersion into the story and the world?

Eric: We are still discussing exactly how we want to handle our server structure and whether or not we want to have things such as RP servers. Once we make those decisions we will do our best to let our community know about our plans.Is the marketplace going to be global between servers, i.e. drawing data for marketplace prices and selection from multiple servers, or is it going to be local to a specific server?

Eric: The Marketplace will be global, drawing data from all servers.

It is known that there will be central name database, so no renaming will be necessary when a character switches servers. However, it is unclear how frequently a character can change servers. Will this be possible at will, or will it be restricted somehow?

Eric: The main reason we are breaking our players into different worlds (or servers) is that we like the community that having a smaller pool of players that you see more often provides. Therefore we will need to place some restrictions on how often a player can switch servers. We will provide more details on this once we have decided what those limitations are.

We know that there will be minipets Guild Wars 2, but the details are still under wraps. Will minipets occupy space in a player’s inventory in order to use or present them, or will there be another mechanism? Can a player display minipets from their storage even from a distance?

Eric: We aren’t quite ready to talk about how miniatures work in Guild Wars 2. This system is one that is currently under development so when we’ve finalized more details about it we will let you know all about it.

How will the three factions (The Vigil, Durmand Priory, and Order of Whispers) influence the game? They will compete with each other in some way?

Eric: They influence the game in several important ways. First, the organization that the player joins will determine a significant portion of the personal story that they experience at higher levels. The organizations also figure prominently in many dynamic event chains and each of them has a unique looking armor (light, medium, and heavy) and weapon set that players can acquire.
The organizations treat each other as rivals at times but they all ultimately recognize that they share the same ultimate goal, protecting Tyria from the Elder Dragons.

Will there be titles with displayable emotes tied to them, like the emotes for Hero or Zaishen Titles in Guild Wars?

Eric: Titles in Guild Wars 2 will be much more cosmetic than they were in Guild Wars. We do not plan to associate any emotes or abilities with our titles but instead use them as cosmetic rewards in various systems. While the majority of titles are gained through achievements there are many other ways to gain access to new titles such as through the personality system, the Hall of Monuments, and the personal story.

World vs World will be the pvp the majority of the players will play. From what i read, it will be quite fun! However, the pros will play 5v5 structured pvp. There will for sure be tournaments with prizes for that, like it happened in gw1.

World vs World will be the pvp the majority of the players will play. From what i read, it will be quite fun! However, the pros will play 5v5 structured pvp. There will for sure be tournaments with prizes for that, like it happened in gw1.